3/18/99
There is a rush to judgment compromise being embraced by state legislators and the independent governor.
Republicans, who have been stiffed for the past two budget cycles by the majority Democrats and Gov. Angus King, have apparently become part and parcel of the unanimous appropriations committee's recommendations - and that's all that they are, recommendations - that the part one portion of the biennial budget is a done deal.
Part one is the existing government programs and services. However, part one contains considerable increases. Gov. King's original request including both parts one and two if enacted project an increase of $1 billion over the previous biennium. Part two portion of the budget contains new and expanded services.
The budget requires a two-thirds vote by the legislature, or did until the previous two biennial budgets when the majority Democrats decided it could, and did, pass a partisan Democrats-only budget. The Republicans were in fact disenfranchised as to budget participants as were about half the state voters which elected the Republicans.
The Republicans this year apparently want to become budget players and not be branded as the party that wants to shut down state government. A budget is required prior to July 1 or that could happen. But the R's signing on to a $1 billion or somewhat less budget increase has some R's wondering where their party stands.
House Republican Leader Tom Murphy seems satisfied that his party has been a part of the budget process. So far, that input has solely been by the five R-members of the 13-member Appropriations and Financial Affairs Committee.
With majorities in both houses of the legislature, both chairs of the committee are Democrats as are six other members. The R-members who have apparently signed aboard the unanimous approval of the part one budget are Sen. Philip Harriman (R-Cumberland) and Representatives Richard Kneeland (R-Easton), Tom Winsor (R-Norway), Joe Bruno (R-Raymond) and Richard Nass (R-Acton).
King's projected FY 2000-2001 biennial budget is not only the highest in state history but the largest ever two-year increase in spending, $1 billion, over its previous budget.
The part one and part two portions of the budget merge into the one State of Maine Budget Document 2000-2001.
Some of the general revenue projections for the biennium include sales and use tax, $1,660. billion; individual income tax, $1,969.billion; corporate income tax, $209,524,855; tobacco tax, $166,625,392; liquor, $40,527,970; lottery $75,777,203.
King also wants more than half a billion dollars, $522,807,504, for the highway fund including a new nickel a gallon gas and diesel tax.
Nobody seems to know just exactly what the so-called state surplus is. Best guess at this point is $160 million, but there is more than enough new legislation including the existing current services increases to wipe out the surplus many times over.
King is a great booster of the Rainy Day fund. In FY 1988-99, $21,442,685 of the sales tax revenue was transferred to the Fund, presumably by statute equivalent to .05 of tax revenue (36 MRSA Section 1811).
The Rainy Day Fund, which now hovers around $100 million, is appropriated by the majority party legislature for whatever partisan issues and programs it wishes. Some legislators call it the ultimate slush fund.
It seems doubtful with the latest spending cooperation by Republicans with the Democrats that the legislature will pass any meaningful tax relief and continue its spending habits of the past years. Consider that the Maine Legislature in the last decade has increased spending by a phenomenal 51 percent!
In 1990, the state legislature spent $1,520,692,150 to run the government. In the year 2001, projections are the state legislature will spend $2,295,208,007. The biggest increases have been under the King Administration.
The projected per capita personal income for Maine citizens in the year 2005 is $17,032, the 34th lowest in the United States.
Can Maine afford its liberal spending legislature?
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